Walmart And Target Partner To Redefine Industry And Cultural Leadership

A few weeks ago, Eduardo Porter wrote a column in the New York Times that examined how we motivate companies to do good. Despite noting the legacy of companies like Ford and
Coca-Cola that pioneered a higher duty of care towards employees, the recent rise in brands jumping on what he described as the ‘corporate social responsibility bandwagon,’ and the notable leadership of conglomerates such as Costco and
Unilever, he concludes that elected governments - while imperfect - are a better tools to address societies ills. I could not disagree more.

Porter makes the mistake of casting the solution in mutually exclusive terms, while the truth is a shade of grey. For every successful corporate
CSR program there is a costly example of gridlock in Congress or a lack of sufficient funds to support the important work being done by Foundations, non-profits, or NGO’s. For every successful Federal or State initiative, there are corporate programs whose effectiveness is diminished by mixed motives or competing interests. Rather than be forced to choose between them, we must leverage the best efforts of government, the private sector, and philanthropy if we are to truly meet the scale of social crises we face with equal force. Only then will we unlock the broad spectrum of assets – from intellectual property, to management, to infrastructure and innovation - that is unique to the private sector and leverage those resources to complement the work of government agencies and non-profits.

Photo courtesy of Forum for the Future

Walmart and
Target announced a powerful example of such corporate leadership when these long-standing rivals chose to co-host a Beauty Care Product Sustainability Summit (#BPCSummit). This unprecedented cross-sector Summit, co-convened by Forum for the Future, is specifically focused on how the retail giants - and by extension, their suppliers - improve their sustainability performance to better serve their customers, the industry, and the planet. The summit is designed to facilitate broad collaboration with consumers and NGO’s concerned about the environmental and social impact of products, and retailers and manufacturers seeking to develop more sustainable products through industry-wide cooperation. Such a joint effort is a powerful demonstration of large brands suspending competitive motives to be more socially responsible on behalf of all stakeholders.

When you consider our hyper-connected world, such efforts are not counter-intuitive. We now live in a mutually dependent and intimately connected global community that has realized that we live on a planet of finite resources that is being dangerously compromised as evidenced by climate change, loss of biodiversity, over-fishing, and beyond. As such, the well-informed customers on which brands depend are demanding greater social responsibility from companies, especially among Millennials and Gen Z. By working together to address global crises, brands can respond to these new demands and shore up their own survival.

At the same time brands cannot survive in societies or ecosystems that fail. So by igniting a conversation around shared responsibility for product sustainability, all parties can benefit from the collective learning to reach a better result at scale for society far sooner. What’s more, by working together they set a powerful example to all industries that the solutions we need must be large, collaborative efforts, and so the Summit serves as a permission slip for other companies and industries to do the same.

In short, corporations are not only well equipped to do good, they are wise to do so. What brands like Walmart and Target are doing is mitigating the risk of consumer activism, building their reputation, and generating positive word of mouth in a social business marketplace that is increasingly perilous for irresponsible brands. The business landscape is now littered with brands that have suffered at the hands of consumer activism (from Netflix to Lululemon to American Apparel) and more companies are now rising to this challenge by remaking their products in ways that allow them to be more transparent and accountable (such as CVS, Chick-fil-A, and Subway). At the same time we see collaborative efforts on the rise including B Corporations and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, both of which hold member companies accountable to common social responsibility measures.

This process is nowhere near complete, nor will it ever be perfect. But we are far better off celebrating genuine, cross-sector efforts to practice business more responsibly than dismissing the private sector as ineffectual. No amount of responsible social enterprises, hard-working non-profits, or government initiatives will stem of the tide of social crises if we don’t address the root of the problem – a private sector that still has far too much negative impact on customer’s lives, society, and the planet. Instead, customers and shareholders alike should celebrate efforts like those by Walmart and Target so that over time, we temper the most irresponsible excesses of business. If we don’t, such behavior will cause global systemic problems that no amount of money can fix.

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